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McCain the war hero and Palin the Everymom are pushing their life stories, not policy issues.
AP Photo

Meanwhile, the McCain-Palin team will crow about riding into Washington with six-guns blazing to clean up a dirty town. But beyond clamping down on congressional spending — something Palin didn’t make a priority as governor of a state that is legendary for its take from the federal treasury — they offer precious few specifics of how they’ll do the deed or how their maverick personas would actually fix rising unemployment levels, energy dependence or hobbled education and health care systems. Still, the campaigning-by-biography plan seems to be working — for now. McCain and Palin are drawing bigger-than-ever crowds and leading in the polls, and even the Republican Party as a whole is seeing an uptick in popularity.

Oddly, it’s the vice presidential candidate who seems to be the reason. Does anyone think the convention would have grabbed as large a TV audience without her? Does anyone think voters would be lining the streets and packing crowds without Palin onboard?

The McCain campaign is using Palin’s celebrity to sell his biography — and as a means to overcome the Arizona senator’s historic reticence to delve into his Vietnam experience. To this end, Palin has become chief testifier to the courage and fortitude McCain demonstrated 40 years ago.

Appearing with the Arizona senator at rallies following the convention, she touted his prescience on the surge in Iraq before focusing unambiguously on what Republicans really want to get across.

“He is the only great man in this race,” Palin said flatly before about 15,000 flag-waving Coloradoans in military-heavy Colorado Springs on Saturday.

If that didn’t convey the point, she also noted: “It’s a long way from the fear and the pain and the squalor of a 4-by-6 cell in Hanoi to the Oval Office.”

McCain, Palin noted, is the sort “whose name you’ll find on war memorials in small towns all across this great country — only he was among those who came home.”

Citing Democrats’ populist rhetoric about “fighting” for average Americans, Palin has also begun to remind voters of McCain’s military service by employing the term literally.

“Since Sen. McCain won’t say this on his own behalf, let me say it: There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you, and that man is John McCain,” Palin said at another large rally outside Detroit on Friday night, drawing loud applause and chants of “John McCain, John McCain.”

For his part, McCain has used her reformist image to amplify his, though without the droning details and fine print of McCain-Feingold and the like. “Send a team of mavericks who aren’t afraid to go to Washington and break some china,” he implored the raucous crowd in Michigan.

But McCain recognizes that Palin’s appeal is as rooted in her personal story as it is in her reputation as a reforming politician.

In their first ad featuring Palin, the campaign features a picture of McCain and Palin together as an announcer proclaims, “They’ll make history,” a clear allusion to her potential to be the first female vice president.

And, in an interview over the weekend with Univision, McCain first cited her political credentials in defending her preparation for the office.

But when asked more open-endedly what Hispanic voters should know about Palin, he went straight for the heart.

“You know, one of the things that Hispanics, in my view, are strongest on are family, family, la familia, and this is a great example,” McCain said. “From an oldest son who is about to go to war, to a youngest baby who is so, so perfect and so exceptional with Down syndrome. So, I think you would find that Hispanic people will warm to her and love her the way that other people have known her, again, as the most popular governor in America.”

And the thousands of women thronging McCain-Palin rallies since the convention are clearly learning to love her for some of the same reasons.

While some cite her anti-abortion stance, most touch on her authenticity or, more candidly, her gender.

For others — especially those who brought their daughters and granddaughters out to events and waved “Girl Power” signs — Palin evokes the same sort of Jackie Robinson-like pride based on her gender that Obama does with his race.

Joanne Hannawell of Wauwatosa, Wis., was at a Friday rally in the Milwaukee suburbs. She put Palin’s appeal this way: “I think it’s time we have a woman involved in higher office.”

Well McCain is running his campaign and it sounds like the Democrats "proxy" in this campaign the liberal MSM wolfpack press wants McCain to run his campaign according to their instructions, wrong my friends. First of all, after watching the campaign yesterday, they are talking about the economy and yes they are still introducing Sarah to the American people.

It's sad to see those folks in our liberal press trying to diminish Sarah's life story. It really is an American story going from mom to PTA to Governor of the largest state in the Union, Alaska. And as Governor having to deal with daily issues related to health care, education, the environment and in Alaska constant energy issues.

MartinKOS and Jimmy V, you guys are repeating the same talking points as the DNC and the Obama campaign. I guess you're not watching the McCain / Palin campaign because yes they are talking about economic issues. My fellow Americans what we have going here is just another corrupt attempt by the Democrats proxies in our wolfpack press to "create campaign themes and issues" that are designed to help the Obama campaign. First they tried the "race card" theme and that blew up in their faces. Then our wolfpack press and the Democrats tried the "class-warfare" theme but McCain picked Sarah so they got knocked off that theme. So now we are on to a new "propaganda theme" which is "McCain's not talking about the economy", which he and Palin certainly are. This is all part of the other Obama theme of "McCain is out of touch".

Look none of these themes are going to work. Not the McCain is the same as Bush theme. Not the theme that McCain is too far right theme, because why would John Kerry consider McCain as his veep in 2004 if McCain was far-right type of guy. None of it's going to stick because John McCain is "solid" in his convictions and principles and that's what Americans are looking for and going to vote for on November 4th.

It 's well past time for America's most liberal MSM wolfpack press to dis-engage in their proxy efforts with the Democrat Party and return themselves to the job of bringing "clean and straight" information to the American people, like our Founding Fathers wanted. Look even in baseball every team has "lefty" and "righty" pitchers. But in America's free left-wing press we have almost all "lefty's" and the country is made up of mostly "righty's". So let's level this playing field. MSM wolfpack "hiring managers" are you listening? Jimmy V. are you listening?

Ha, it didn't take long for MSNBC....oh, Politico to go back to their partisan agenda. Keep it up Politio, you are about to lose a hit on your website. I'm sure there are thousands of people with the same feeling. Media pandering to the left.......never would have thought of that. Keep it up though, you are driving people to McCain/Palin.

Ha, it didn't take long for MSNBC....oh, Politico to go back to their partisan agenda. Keep it up Politio, you are about to lose a hit on your website. I'm sure there are thousands of people with the same feeling. Media pandering to the left.......never would have thought of that. Keep it up though, you are driving people to McCain/Palin.

Politico...........you are not wise in your reporting. Since, coming from Barack, all he says is: "Change", "4 more years of bush", "Karl Rove wrote their speeches."...ect. I think you get the point. Barack has no substance, like most people say, he is an empty suit and no experience. Where in the hell is your reporting of what Barack has to offer, or his policies???? Truth: he has none! He road the "change" train, and now the train is dead. And all rational people see that. What a joke of journalism.

ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told ABC's David Muir Saturday that his support for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants will not block his path to the White House because he and G.O.P. frontrunner John McCain share substantial overlap on immigration.

"This campaign is not about issues. . . it's about personality."-- Rick Davis, McCain campaign chief advisor. What's the right wing whining about now? You don't like being quoted on what you said? Here's an idea, if you don't want to be quoted, and you don't like hearing it, don't SAY IT. I've never seen such a whining, complaining group of blowhards. Waaaahh! The media's being mean to us! Waaaaah! Don't you guys (and ladies) have Rush Limbaugh to occupy your time or something? If not just turn to Hannity and keep spewing that same hateful, right-wing nonsense you always do.

Update II: It was then-Sen. John Kennedy that arranged a grant for a scholarship program to bring Kenyan students to America. The rest remains under question.

Update: Video of Obama's Selma Speech

When Mitt Romney stated that he saw his father march with Martin Luther King Jr., there was wall to wall media coverage reporting how he had to start backpeddaling. Even after witnesses came forward claiming they had seen his father march with him, the media story of Mitt fabricating the story still persists.

Will Obama get the same media treatment with his lies? Don’t hold your breath. In a speech to a Selma, Alabama crowd meant to pump up his civil-rights movement authenticity and his Kennedy Camelot image, Barack Obama claimed that the Kennedy administration paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and therefore was responsible for his “very existence”. However, the first march on Selma took place on March 7, 1965. Obama would have been about three and half years old at that time. For some reason the media never did the math on this.

Too funny - that is one way to look at it. Another is that they refuse to pander as Obama is to every single item. Obama wants them to run their campaign the same way he is running his. He is going after them saying he is a new kind of politician when he is using the same attacks. He said he wouldn't go after Palin and then constantly attacks her. Most americans are familiar with the issues. McCain wants to cut spending and Obama wants to increase government programs. McCain wants to lower taxes and now Obama says he will keep the bush tax cuts because people know that his tax plan would raise taxes on most americans. He admitted that he is attempting to use redistribution of wealth as his primary revenue generator which Americans are against.

For McCain and Palin it is about lowering taxes and improving education. For Biden and Obama it is about increasing taxes and government programs to help the unions. Funny - http://www.businessweek.com/ma... business week article that talks about how FORD can't make their 65 mile per gallon car here in the USA - why? Because Obama's unions make it economically impossible! You tell me - who is talking about the real issues and putting america first? Is this real change? Unions preventing the real change we need from happening. Sorry Obama - not gonna buy it!